The Importance of an HR Department-A Case Study

------------------------------------------------------------------Md. Jahangir Alam
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Many organizations in the country still do not have a Human Resource (HR) Department. Often this is because the goals and objectives of establishing a separate HR department are not yet clear to the top management of many such organizations. Besides, many organizations think that the HR job, which is to look after the issues of personnel management & development, is actually the administration department's job. In fact, the functions of administration and HR departments are neither similar nor the same even if they may be closely related. The job of the HR department is to formulate the policy of human resource management and development while that of an administration department is to facilitate the organization in ensuring proper implementation of the functions or activities of the organization as per the policies of the organization. Below there is a case study, which shows why an HR department is necessary.

A Case; Need of HR Department!

A Law firm having its head office in Dhaka and its branches located in the major cities of the country has been quite successful since its inception some time in the 1950s. But recently it has witnessed a high turnover of its younger staff in one of the branches in the Southern region. A survey subsequently conducted indicates that the firm's salary structure is competitive with that of other major firms. Convinced that the problem is not salary, the managing partner, driven by the resulting incomprehension, wants a Senior Employee, who has already proven his managerial worth in various aspects to head this branch and to find out the real reasons.

Having settled in the Branch the Senior Employee meets the four high officials and has a discussion with them to determine why the branch has had such a high attrition rate among the younger staff. The first Speaker at the meeting, who has been working in the organization for the last 10 years, states that the younger staff lacks dedication and fails to appreciate the career opportunities provided by the firm. The second Speaker, aged 52, says the younger employees are always complaining about the lack of meaningful feedback on their performance, and many have mentioned that they would like to have a sponsor in the organization to assist with their development. He further explains that the firm does not provide performance rating to its staff though the previous manager had also mentioned an 'Open-door Policy'. The third Speaker aged 39 states, 'I have received complaints that the present Training Program is not relevant and generally dull.' He adds that pervious persons in the firm who worked with the training program from time to time acted mainly on the guidance of Head Office, which in fact did not give importance to the ground-level work or to the personal development of the employees. The last Speaker, aged 35, who mainly deals with the personnel affairs in that branch, says she believes that the root of the problem is the absence of HR department, which could motivate them facilitating addressing career related issues though the idea earlier presented to the Head office was totally rejected. She also states, 'we are always busy with the accomplishments of the firm; we cannot spare time for the employees. Emergence of Career Counseling Section under HR department is now the demand of time to retain the younger employees.'

Analysis

According to the first Speaker, most of the younger employees fail to acknowledge the career opportunities currently available in the firm. The younger employees who dream of being careerists need to see career development opportunities clearly- something the HR department can and do help them with. Without introducing a separate HR department, an organization cannot attempt to provide its employees with better career development facilities.

Complaining against the 'lack of meaningful feedback on their performance' stated by the second Speaker & supported by the third speaker in the meeting is another major issue, which is absolutely related to the functions of HR department. Because introducing 'Open-door Policy' appraisal system stated by one of the Speakers is part of the job of HR experts, who are responsible for formulating periodical performance appraisal system. It is true that HR departments do this difficult job with the support and coordination of the related functional departments. But it is the unique job of HR department to provide the feedback of performance appraisal to the individual employees.

Another Speaker raises questions about the consistency as well as the effectiveness of the training programs. According to his statement the training activities the management used to follow were not consistent with the requirement; in many cases these were dull and produced nothing; they merely spoiled the time. This issue indicates the requirement of Training Need Analysis (TNA), which is to be done by the Training Analyst working under the human resource management. TNA is a tool to identify the necessity of training, level of training resources and materials, etc.

Finally, the statements made by the last Speaker in the meeting reveal utmost necessity of introducing HR department in the firm. So, on the basis of the above analysis of the case, it could be concluded that the HR department consisting of qualified HR personnel is not only essential for the employee's development but also for the greater interest of the firm. Any organization without an HR department is doomed to face the same fate or even more severe than the Law Firm experienced. In this connection, it could be added that the HR department is directly or indirectly involved with many other activities, which lead to the forward direction of the business organization, such as developing HR plan for the entire organization, ensuring the availability of competent employees in the organization, ensuring the efficient use of scarce resources, formulating proper paths for the execution of assigned jobs on time, establishing relationship between staff management & line management, ensuring flexible business relationship on the basis of proper environmental analysis and many more.

Employees are the heart of an organization and if their development cannot be ensured, the organization's development cannot be ensured either.